


Citation Needed

by sgteam14283



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, First Meetings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:06:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgteam14283/pseuds/sgteam14283
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In academics it's kill or be killed, fortunately Clint knows how to navigate it. Until he meets a professor from Berkley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Citation Needed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sneakronicity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sneakronicity/gifts).



> This was really fun to write! Hugs and cookies go to gelbes_gilatier for letting me use her as an academic sounding board. Don't own anything you recognize and enjoy!

Clint Barton set down the paper on why the Colonists shouldn’t have won the American Revolution and rubbed his eyes. “ _How much longer until I can go home?_ ” he absently asked himself while leaning back in his chair and letting out a long breath. He’d been at the university for six years and head of the History Department for three. Before that it had been Boston and before _that_ bouncing around the world to give talks on whatever book he’d published recently. Compared to his childhood, it was a dull life but Clint felt that he’d earned it; fighting to get where he was today.

His eyes were still closed when he heard the sound of a knock on his door and then “Hey Professor Barton…” 

“Yeah?” he replied while opening his eyes to see Kate Bishop standing in the doorway with her trademark exasperated expression. 

“You’re going to be late for the faculty mixer.” 

“Is it that late already? _Damn…_ ” Clint sprung up out of the chair and grabbed the suit jacket hanging on his bow in the corner of his office. Putting it on he asked, “How do I look?” 

“Like you’re a professor at a liberal arts college.” Kate replied while handing him his briefcase and straightening his tie. “And that you’d be a complete mess without your amazing T.A.”

“Does that mean you got the research done?” 

“Yup. All will love your newest book besmirching the legacy of our proud leaders.”

“You’re never going to let that go are you? That was _one_ book proposal and it never got beyond that. But I should double check what you got, see if-”

“Now you’re stalling.” Kate said as she steered Clint towards the door that led out of the department offices. “Go and mingle with your fellow colleagues, it’ll look good for the department if everyone sees you there. And If you’re lucky Professor Stark will get plastered again and trip the fire alarm. You can make your escape then.”

Clint sighed but didn’t say anything and stepped out into the hallway. Making his way across campus, he wondered why they’d asked him to become department head-Bobbi had been more than interested in taking the position, but in the end he figured that the board had gone with who they thought was the best candidate.

By the time he arrived, the hall was already filled with his colleagues and Clint loosened his tie a bit while heading towards the bar. With a drink in his hand he was able to relax a bit more and swept his eyes over the room looking for a few of his closer acquaintances. It wasn't hard to spot Thor, the man towered over almost everyone and the football coach’s laughter echoed through the room as he talked with some of the other professors. The next person he spotted was Doctor Banner, who was in a heated debate with Doctor Foster, and Clint wondered if they were still arguing on who should get the science grant the university had recently gotten; the biology or astrophysics department. Clint hadn’t spotted Stark yet, but knew the head of the science department would show up soon if he wasn’t already and a toss up if he’d be three sheets to the wind already or not. Slowly walking around the room Clint spotted Steve talking to someone he didn’t recognize and stopped to look at her. 

She was wearing a black cocktail dress that made her short red hair stand out and Clint was intrigued; most everyone here was in their dress casual clothes that they wore while teaching yet she looked like she was going to some five-star restaurant after this. His curiosity piqued, Clint made his way towards the pair and drew near enough to hear, “…Bucky was right, you’ll like it here.”

Realizing they were talking about Barnes, who’d left the university suddenly last semester, Clint started to make a hard turn to leave them alone but Steve spotted him and said, “Clint! I’m surprised to see you here, thought you’d be working on your new book.” 

“I wanted to, but Kate made sure I emerged from my office.”

Steve chuckled while giving Clint a knowing look, “Actually it’s good that I found you, I want to introduce you to Natasha. Nat, this is the guy I was telling you about.” 

“Clint Barton, History.” Clint said while extending his hand.

“Natasha Romanov, Literature.” Natasha replied while shaking his hand and flashing him a smile.

“Nice to meet you. Did you just start?” 

“Yesterday was my first day, so far it’s…different than Berkley.”

Clint raised an eyebrow, “Berkley? That’s impressive. I’m sure you’ll fit right in here though, it’s a good place to get published.”

“I’m sure it is. If you’ll excuse me I need to introduce myself to the board, it was good to meet you Clint.” Natasha excused herself with smile and disappeared into the crowd of academics.

“You didn’t tell me the Lit department hired someone, Rogers. How’s your in there supposed to give us an edge if you don’t use it?” Clint teased as he turned to face his friend.

Steve just chuckled while staring into his drink, “I just found out yesterday and you were out with the archery team when I went by your office.”

“Just leave me a note next time, from the looks of it I’m the last to find out.”

—-

The laptop dinged and Clint glanced up to see that an email from the board had arrived and realized that it would be about the funding he’d applied for. Glad that the money had finally come through, he opened the email and started to read. But as he read, his good mood suddenly vanished. 

“Damnit!” he ground out through gritted teeth. “ _Of all the…they said the funding was as good as mine…that the vote was just a formality._ ” Still fuming he stuck his head out into the hallway and yelled, “Bishop!”

“What?” Kate asked, hurrying over with a concerned look on her face. “What’s going on?” 

“The Lit department just stole our fucking funding. Call over there and tell them I’m coming over right now to talk to their department head.” Clint said as he jammed on his jacket and stormed out. Making the walk in half the time, Clint ignored the secretary’s question and walked right towards the office. “Do you mind telling me why you just stole my departments funding?” he asked after stepping inside without knocking first.

Natasha raised an eyebrow as she glanced away from her laptop to where Barton was huffing; his ears red either from anger, the cold weather outside, or a combination of both. “I take it you just got the email.” 

“Damn right I did. And I ask again, _why?_ ”

“Because it was a condition of my hiring, the department hasn’t received additional funding in years and since the science department just got a grant that freed up money within the university. So I told the committee that if they wanted me then they had to give me the money.”

Do you know what I was going to use that funding for? I was gonna give Bobbi a T.A. and now she’s going to kill me. You know why?”

Natasha just looked at Clint with a blank expression, waiting for him to tell her. 

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “ _Because she’s my ex._ I already told her to start looking. Now she’s gonna blame me and I’d _just_ gotten on her good side with this.”

“Well if you haven’t noticed the offices here look like they haven’t been remodeled since the early 90s and from what May told me, last year a pipe burst in this office and it still smells musty.” Natasha replied, slowly getting up from her chair and placing her hands on the desk while leaning forwards. “So tell me who needs the funding more; you to get along with your ex-wife or me so my office stops smelling like mold.”

Clint was silent, knowing that Natasha had him there; that even if he kicked it up to the board (and he _was_ going to send them an email no matter what) they were going to side with Romanov because obviously she was such a good hire that they’d risk Clint’s anger just to snag her. “This isn’t over.” he growled before storming out of her office.

“Next time knock before you come in!” Clint heard Natasha shout as he headed towards the exit.

—

Clint looked across his desk at the student on the other side and then at the paper that he’d written. “You’re a Literature major correct?” 

“Yes, sir. Plan on getting my English degree and hopefully find work with a PR firm, maybe a copy job with a newspaper.” 

“Well Professor May was right when she said you were one of her top students, but I was wondering if you’d ever thought about getting a History degree? You had some interesting insight writing about Evita and the cult of personality. Now I know that getting a History degree might seem like narrowing the job search, but honestly it would open a few that having an English degree wouldn’t; congressional aide, consulting, and researcher just to name a few.” 

“Really?” 

Clint smiled while nodding his head. He could tell that he’d caught the interest and leaned closer, setting the trap.

—

Natasha walked quickly down the hallway, her heels clicking forcefully against the tile. “Is he in his office?” she asked Kate while pointing to the closed door.

“Yes but-”

“Thank you.” She walked towards the door and opened it. “What the _hell_ were you thinking, stealing one of my students?” 

Clint set down the pen and put his hands behind his head with a shrug, “I just told him that with a History degree he’d have more opportunities than one in English-you know how print media is struggling nowadays. He made the decision to switch on his own.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You want a fight, fine; just know that you started it.” Natasha replied before turning sharply on her heels and walking out of his office.

“Next time knock before you come in!” Clint shouted towards the open door with a grin on his face. A second later Kate popped her head in and opened her mouth to say something he said, “Don’t.” 

“I wasn’t going to-”

“Yes you were and I don’t want to hear it. Besides, if you ever become a professor you’ll have to deal with these kinds of things; academia is cutthroat.” 

“So I see. But did you really have to steal a student from her department? That’s kinda low, even for you.”

“I said don’t. Did you finish grading those tests?” 

“Not yet.”

“Then go finish.”

—

Clint read the email and then read it again, hoping that he’d somehow misread it but no…it was still the same. Letting out a heavy sigh Clint stood and grabbed his gear, breezing past Kate with a simple, “I’ll be at the range.” not caring that he was leaving in the middle of his office hours. After getting that kind of news he needed to take his mind off of things.

Since it was during normal class hours the archery range was empty, not that it saw much use outside of the archery team practice and the odd elective class filled with student’s who’d seen _The Hunger Games_ and wanted to try it. But Clint was glad he’d convinced the university to install it, so the team could practice all year round, host a few of the regional tournaments, and even make it to nationals every year since Kate (then an undergrad) had pestered Clint to be the coach for the team. And as much as he enjoyed coaching, there were times when it just needed to be him, his bow, and the target. 

Dropping his bag onto the floor, Clint quickly slung his quiver over his shoulder and pulled an arrow, nocking it and took aim. The arrow hit the center of the target and Clint reached for another one, this one hitting the center as well. Clint let the thoughts about the past month fade as he let the arrows fly and only stopped when his quiver was empty, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he walked to collect his arrows and load them back into the quiver. 

Flexing his muscles, Clint felt infinitely better than when he’d first arrived and had the idea that he could set up a course to test his mobility and shooting on the fly. “ _I could have the team run a few drills on it since the competitions won’t stay static for long._ ” Clint thought as he picked up his bag and headed out. The sun was somewhat lower than when he first came in and as he walked across campus to his car, Clint wondered if he should cave and get a place nearer to the university; he could certainly afford it, but at the same time knew that he wouldn’t. Not as long as Bobbi still had their place a few miles from campus.

“Doctor Barton!” 

Clint turned when he heard his name and inwardly groaned when he saw that the voice belonged to Natasha. While they hadn’t met again since she barged into his office, in the past month their ‘war’ had continued; she’d stolen his lecture hall and he bribed Tony to hack into the calendar and change the times on her class-so that they conflicted with other courses, she then ordered an edible bouquet and sent it to the president’s wife; who happened to be allergic to strawberries and Clint had nearly escaped with his job intact thanks to some quick thinking on his (and Kate’s) part. And while Clint hadn’t retaliated for that yet, he was thinking of bribing Tony again and assigning her the worst parking spot in campus-the one all the way across campus and next to the theatre.

But all of that flew out of his head when she reached him and he saw that she was in formal evening wear; a long black dress with matching heels and rather expensive looking earrings. He wondered why she was still at the university while dressed like that.

“You’re not going to the fundraiser?” Natasha asked as she took in Clint’s workout clothes; a faded t-shirt and a pair of running shorts. While she might dislike him at the moment, but could put that aside for a second and admire how he looked in that outfit.

“The what?” Clint was racking his brain, trying to remember what fundraiser Natasha was talking about. Being the head of the history department meant he spent a lot of time at university fundraisers trying to get wealthy alumni to open their checkbooks a bit more. 

“The fundraiser at the Museum, everyone got a notice about it two weeks ago. Apparently Tony’s family owns-”

“the Museum. Yeah, he does this about twice a year to apologize for being…well himself and even though he’s loaded he’s still a professor-when he’s sober that is.” Clint finished with a ghost of a smile. “But that was tonight? _Damn…_ ” 

“Well now that you know I might save you a dance.” Natasha gave Clint a slow smile before walking past him and getting into her car.

Clint wasn’t sure how to respond so he just watched her get into a Corvette and drive away. Snapping out of it, he turned on his phone and pulled up his messages-seeing that Kate had sent him about ten all with the same heading about tonight. Sighing, Clint was glad he kept a spare suit in his office for when he forgot about a function and if he hurried he could get there in an hour or so.

—

The museum lobby was filled with faculty, some of the socialites Clint had only seen on the rare occasion that he picked up a newspaper, and the odd politician who wanted to look good for their reelection campaign and get a tax write off at the same time. Hands in his pockets Clint scanned the crowd for Steve or even Bruce, someone he could at least talk to long enough to be seen by others and then slip out before it got too late.

Spotting Steve on the second floor, Clint started to head in that direction when Natasha stepped in front of him and smiled. “You clean up nice.”

He felt his face heat up slightly and scratched the back of his head, “Thanks…I guess.” 

“How about that dance? Or are you trying to make your escape?” 

“Just got here actually…but yeah, I’ll take that dance if you’ll answer a question for me.”

“What?”

“Why are you suddenly being so nice? We haven’t been on the best of terms lately.”

Natasha took a sip of her drink before answering, “You got the email right? Since the department heads have to come up with a proposal for interdisciplinary research I figured we could team up since Literature and History go so well together.”

“Really?” Clint asked with a raised eyebrow as a waiter walked by and he set his near empty glass on the tray with Natasha doing the same. “And what do you specialize in?”

“American Gothic.” Natsha replied while taking Clint’s offered arm and moving towards the dance floor. “Everyone’s surprised when they learn that, they think that just because I have a Russian name it means I studied Russain Literature.”

Clint chuckled as they reached where the rest of the couples were dancing, “I can understand that. My family has a long record of military service and when people learn that and know I’m a history professor they assume that it’s military history.” 

Natasha looked at Clint as he took her hand and they started to slowly move to the beat. She had thought him just another burnt out university professor who was counting down the days until retirement and dismissed his female colleagues. But upon talking with him for more than a few minutes while not going for the academic jugular, she was finding out that they might be more similar than she originally thought. “ _But that doesn’t mean I suddenly like him. He’s still an idiot._ ” she thought to herself while laughing at the punchline of some joke Barton had finished telling.

Hours later Clint walked out of the museum with the promise of emailing Natasha about some ideas for their proposal, and the realization that she wasn’t as much of an ice queen than he originally thought she was. “ _I still hate her for stealing my funding though._ ” he thought to himself, unlocking his car and getting in.


End file.
